Snapshot Saturday: Mulberries for the taking

The mulberry tree outside the study window.

See this tree? I look at it every day, from the study window. As trees go, it’s not so special to look at. But for two months in summer it gives satisfaction to three households, by providing them with mulberries, day after day after day.

Mulberries ripe and under ripe.

Although they grow on trees, mulberries are a bit like loganberries, or a cross between raspberries and blackberries. They’re tart, yet sweet, and very moreish indeed. I can’t pass the tree without scavenging on the lawn for a handful to eat.

Yet another bowlful of mulberries

I collect a dishful every morning to put on my cereal. We add them to summer pudding, to yoghurt, to ice cream. We bake with them. We make syrups, cordials and mulberry gin with them. And the tree goes on and on, producing more and more fruits, every day from July to September.

Here’s a recipe I tried out this week. It’s adapted from one of Nigel Slater’s reliably tasty offerings. No mulberries? Poor you. Use raspberries, tayberries, loganberries or blackberries instead. They’ll be good too.

Mulberry and apricot cake

175 g. butter

175 g. golden caster sugar

c. 200 g. apricots

170 g. mulberries

2 eggs

175 g. self-raising flour

100 g. ground nuts – I used a mixture of walnuts and almonds. Hazelnuts are good too.

2 tablespoons of milk.

20 cm. loose-bottomed cake tin, lined. Oven temp 180 degrees (Gas 4)

Stone and roughly chop the apricots.

Cream butter and sugar together till pale and fluffy.

Beat the eggs lightly and add to the creamed mixture a little at a time, adding a spoonful of the flour if necessary to prevent curdling.

Slowly incorporate the flour and ground nuts, then the milk, then the apricots and mulberries.

Scrape the mixture into the cake tin. I added a few extra mulberries on the top – this was decoration enough on the finished cake.

LOVE this post. Love mullberry trees and NEVER knew that the berries can be eaten. When living in TQ I passed often a very old tree that had been thrown over by a storm, was staying (rather lying) on the ground (it was next to the Torre Abbey Museum so that was very well appreciated by everyone) and some years later, a ‘side tree’ grew and stayed (so far!)…. This is such great news for me 🙂 For years now, my entire raspberry ‘collection’ was NIL, either it rained in those days they should ripen, or they were eaten by slugs, birds, insects by the time I wanted to get them or more often, they dried off on their stalks because of a lack of rain water. We only have to be away for 2-3 days, which is often, and the entire hope goes up in shrivel… But I’m not complaining, might just pull them all out and plant flowers! And BUY the frozen raspberries 🙂

yum yum Margaret, you have made my mouth water and brought back many fond childhood memories 🙂
Our neighbour had a huge tree and thanks to his kindness we kept a mass of silkworms which we sold after school. Best was climbing the branches to jump on them and shake the fruit onto our old sheet below, yum but it does stain 🙂

lol they will munch thru any mulberry leaves, or lettuce or rose leaves .. or generally anything as they are hungry little munchers and the different leaves produces a different coloured silk in their cocoons, which is a magical process in itself 🙂

They are delicately sweet. I like The Raw Chocolate Company’s Turkish mulberries, they are organic. My Iranian sister-in-law was in ecsracies when she discovered I had some, she and her family used to eat them regularly when she was a child in Iran. She hadn’t had them in all the 45 years she’s lived here.

The free fruit is the best thing about the garden here at our rental house. We have plum, pear and apple trees plus strawberry plants and raspberry, blackcurrant, redcurrant and gooseberry bushes. And that’s not to mention all the bounteous bramble that’s currently producing more blackberries than I can fit in the freezer. We’ve already taken advantage of our garden haul to make a summer pudding, gooseberry jam and various cakes. I love Nigel Slater’s recipes and we made a rather similar, simple cake (though with strawberries and gooseberries) for our anniversary party.

Looks delicious. I’ve never seen fresh mulberries in the supermarkets or local greengrocers, have you? Is is because they don’t travel? Are they only ripe for a day when you pick them straight off the tree?